| Technology
Leadership |
Issue
32-August 2000 |
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital
LightSpeed – Dr..T.B.S.BUXI
The First
Multislice CT Scanner in South Asia has been installed in Sir Ganga Ram
Hospital by Buxi Diagnostic Pvt. Ltd. This is the GE LightSpeed QX/i.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital started with the first whole body CT Scanner in
1983.
Improvements
in CT Scanner technology combined with powerful computer systems have
ushered in an era of superb image generation. The ability of obtaining
one slice in 0.8 sec has been dramatically improved by obtaining four
slices in 0.8 sec – in Multislice CTs. The hardware and software of imaging
have also undergone a revolutionary change.
The Multislice
CT system uses multiple detector rows and therefore acquires multiple
slices per rotation. As a result, a given volume can be scanned in a fraction
of time; for e.g. the whole chest can be examined in a single breath.
Total volume covered in a given time at a certain resolution is eight
times larger than a single slice scanner, which is suggested by the name
itself, “LightSpeed”.
Dr. T.B.S.
Buxi, Chairman of Buxi Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd. is one of the most eminent
Radiologists in CT and MR imaging. He is an Honorary Adviser to the Armed
Forces Medical Services. He is one of the few fortunate Radiologists who
have personally seen over one lakh and seventy five thousand patients’
CT scans.
Dr. Buxi also
heads the MRI unit of North Health Care Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd.
The new GE
CT LightSpeed system at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has a matrix detector
system, comprising of 16 rows of detectors, compared to a single row in
a conventional scanner. Thus not only is the scan conducted quickly, the
high number of detectors also help in acquiring maximum possible information
from the human body. This CT Scanner has been designed with the use of
Six Sigma methodology thereby making it the highest quality system. The
end result of all this is that superb quality images are obtained in very
short time with faster and thinner slices giving the ability of longer
vertical scans and multiphase organ studies.
Emerging applications
of CT Scanners :
After the introduction
of Helical CT in 1990, new clinical applications of CT have begun to emerge.
Some of these important developments are based on sub-second scanning
e.g. 3D Imaging. High quality volume data sets are of immense value to
studies requiring 3D reconstruction for vascular images including angiography.
These parameters are also key factors in applications related to trauma,
pulmonary embolism, pancreatic cancer imaging, renal transplant and hepatic
transplants. With advanced scanners, hitherto unavailable applications
like cardiac calcium scorning, index demtascan, bone mineral density analysis
are also no longer a dream.
Graphic tools
that permit viewing of the data from inside, or so called perspective
techniques, have been rapidly embraced and have stimulated new data interpretation
methods that are loosely called virtual reality applications, such as
virtual colonoscopy and virtual bronchoscopy. These create rendering that
stimulates the views traditionally obtained by inserting a fibreoptic
endoscope into a body cavity. The virtual endoscope, on the other hand,
is not limited by anatomic boundaries of the body, but relies on natural
(or generated, with iodinated contrast enhancement) image contrast for
visualization. This enables examination of the colon with a Spiral CT,
and is known as virtual colonoscopy or 3D Computed Tomography Colonoscopy
(3D CTC). Another frontier of applications is CT Perfusion – Brain Perfusion
studies in cases of suspected stroke. CT Brain Perfusion
Images Journal
